Practical Theology for Aging
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Practical Theology for Aging

Derrell R. Watkins

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eBook - ePub

Practical Theology for Aging

Derrell R. Watkins

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About This Book

Learn new approaches for strengthening the religious bonds of our aging population! Through Scripture, studies, and the personal experiences of religious leaders and congregants, Practical Theology for Aging offers new concepts for ministering to our older population. Each chapter looks at a different concern for the elderly and addresses it with the assurance that aging is part of God's great work. From scientific models and case studies to passages from both the Old and New Testaments, this volume illuminates the power of faith in keeping the elderly whole and well. Practical Theology for Aging reveals several barriers to the spiritual wellness of our elders. These include society's stereotypical views of frailty and incompetence in older people, the lack of common support by communities of faith, and the dissatisfaction of the elderly with outdated, traditional answers to their concerns of aging, suffering, and death. Each barrier can be overcome by utilizing the practical theology you will find in this book. Restated throughout the volume is the message that the journey into old age does not have to be filled with dread and fear but can be seen as a path to spiritual maturity. This book has practical suggestions that address:

  • God's purpose for aging—why do we have to grow old?
  • sexual health for senior citizens
  • the suffering and physical debilitation that sometimes accompany aging
  • afflictions like dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and how to minister to the unresponsive
  • the inclusion of spirituality in rehabilitation to heal the whole person after catastrophic illness or injury
  • preaching to senior citizens as opposed to preaching to a younger congregation
  • so much more!

Practical Theology for Aging presents tips and strategies for spiritual advisement as well as traditional quotes and references reminding us to respect and honor our aging men and women. Whether you are a religious leader, caretaker, family member, or esteemed elder, this book is vital for strengthening spirituality in the elderly and promoting their inclusion into the religious community.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2013
ISBN
9781136416590
Subtopic
Religion
Edition
1
Chapter 1
To Learn, To Teach, To Care:
Gerontology As It Should Be Practiced–
A Tribute to Barbara Pittard Payne Stancil
Stephen Sapp, PhD
SUMMARY. This article highlights the life and contributions of Barbara Pittard Payne Stancil to the field of gerontology in general and to the issue of spirituality and aging specifically. Her identification with a practical theology that underscores the lived lives of older persons is highlighted. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Pioneer, giant, groundbreaker, pillar, gadfly, social sciences peak, learn, caring, religious gerontology, sexuality, intergenerational, clergy
Stephen Sapp is Professor of Religious Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. Dr. Sapp is a popular speaker on the subject of spirituality and aging and has written a number of articles and books on religion and aging. He served as editor of the Journal of Religious Gerontology.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “To Learn, To Teach, To Care: Gerontology As It Should Be Practiced–A Tribute to Barbara Pittard Payne Stancil.” Sapp, Stephen. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Religious Gerontology (The Haworth Pastoral Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 15, No. 1/2, 2003, pp. 5-16; and: Practical Theology for Aging (ed: Derrel R. Watkins) The Haworth Pastoral Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2003, pp. 5-16. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sku=J078
© 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J078v15n01_02
“Pioneer” 
 “Giant” 
 “Pillar in the Field” 
 “Groundbreaker” 
 All of these terms are often applied to people judged to have made exceptional contributions in some area of human endeavor. Often they are even deserved! In the case of the person we are gathered here this evening to honor and, sadly, for the first time to remember–Barbara Pittard Payne Stancil–they and many others we could all think of are unquestionably appropriate.
As I struggled to get a handle on what Barbara meant to the field of gerontology, the three-fold structure reflected in the title of this lecture came to my mind as truly reflective of her approach, a way of doing gerontology that we would all do well to emulate if we seek a real “best-practices model” for our work in the field. I’m going to use this structure to share with you my impressions of this remarkable woman, often through her own words, either as they appear in some of her many publications or from an interview that Mel Kimble and Jim Ellor of the Center on Aging, Religion, and Spirituality at Luther Seminary conducted with Barbara in 1994.1 Along the way I’ll also offer a few of my own thoughts on some of the issues Barbara addressed so passionately and so well.
In preparing this lecture, I reread many of Barbara’s publications and read others for the first time, and I talked with a number of people who had known her much longer and better than I. As I did so, one of the first things that came to my mind was a quotation from scripture that I think she might have appreciated in this context (and, given her lifelong devotion to the Methodist Church, it’s certainly appropriate in a lecture bearing her name); it comes from the gospel of John, where John the Baptist is quoting the prophet Isaiah: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (1:23). Indeed, that is what Barbara must have felt like at various times during her career in gerontology (of course, I’ve also heard her described by the distinctly nonbiblical term gadfly, but then that term also could apply to biblical prophets like Jeremiah and Amos). As the child of Methodist ministers’ children, Barbara’s whole life had revolved around the church, and thus she knew something in the very core of her being that other gerontologists seemed bent on ignoring (and many still do). As she expressed it back in the mid-1980s in classic “social-sciencespeak,” “The treatment of religion by gerontologists is not consonant with the importance that older people place on religion in their lives.”2 So she set out to correct this incongruity, often–it must have seemed at times–single-handedly, that lone “voice crying in the wilderness.”
To do this, of course, she first had to learn a great deal, to credential herself so that she might have some chance of being listened to, though she had several strikes against her: First, she was a woman; next, she came out of a Christian education background (primarily because that was about all that was really available to women at that time); and finally, she was simply ahead of her times, carrying the banner for the importance of religion at a time when the topic of religion was basically forbidden as a legitimate subject in scientific disciplines. Nonetheless, she persevered in her quest for knowledge against formidable odds; and as I have read much of her writing recently, I have been struck constantly by her familiarity with the literature of gerontology in particular, sociology and psychology more broadly, and theology, a familiarity that was both exceptionally broad and impressively deep.
Clearly her love of learning never waned, a love that led her to take more courses and earn more degrees (four!) than I have time to describe to you. I do have to share one anecdote, though, because it is a great illustration of how she navigated the various programs she pursued at a time when women were not encouraged to do what she was doing: When Barbara decided to get a PhD at Emory, she was asked, “What does a woman of your age want to do with a PhD? Aren’t you wasting our time and yours?” Her reply? “Sir, I’ve got things to do. I don’t know exactly what, but I want this education and I want to teach somewhere.” She happily recalled that years later, when she was here at Georgia State, Emory invited her back “for a convocation–when women became important–because I was the first woman to receive a PhD with a major in religion. So, I led off the convocation, this nontraditional idiot who wanted to learn.”
The fact that Barbara never stopped learning is well illustrated for me by an incident that occurred in–of all places–Acapulco at a meeting of the International Federation of Gerontology in the early 1990s.3 One of Gari Lesnoff-Caravaglia’s doctoral students presented the results of his doctoral dissertation, which he had based on the Pittard Religiosity Scale. After he finished, Barbara stood up and asked, “Why’d you use that old thing? It was out of date years ago” (can any of you hear her saying that?). The poor student, who had no idea who this outspoken woman was, gave the expected dissertation-defense reply: “It’s the standard in the field, long-tested, proved reliable, etc., etc.” Barbara concluded the exchange with the comment, “Well, I hope you’ll consider using something newer and more sophisticated next time.” Afterward when she was introduced to the student, she was typically gracious and supportive of his work, but the incident is illustrative for me of her determination to be on the cutting edge, to continue to seek new and better ways of exploring the rich role of the transcendent in human aging, even if it meant moving beyond and leaving behind her own recognized and accepted work. I wonder how many of us could so easily let go of fruits of our labors that had helped “make our name” in our profession?
So the foundation of gerontology as it should be practiced was from the outset and remained for Barbara a solid base of learning. To return now to my recounting of her early years in the field, having learned academically what she needed to know to complement the practical education that life had already brought her way, she began to teach, both formally here at Georgia State but also informally through her activities in various professional societies (as founder and first president of the Southern Gerontological Society, for example, and president of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, to mention only two of many). And of course she always taught by example as well, especially as she herself grew older! And through all of these efforts, she never failed to care deeply about what she was doing and for those for whom she was ultimately doing it.
Lest we fail to recognize Barbara Payne Stancil’s real contributions in this arena, I want to offer a brief personal anecdote about my entry into the field we now call religious gerontology (no, I’m not about to say that my getting into aging studies was one of her contributions, though she was one of the first names I came to know in the field and one of the first authors I read): I began my journey into things gerontological (academically speaking, at least–Nature was taking care of the personal aspects quite adequately at the time!) with an internal University of Miami research grant for the summer of 1984. Starting from scratch in the field, I set out to read in those three-plus months everything I could find in any field I could find that pertained to the interface of religion and aging. A great deal of it of course bore Barbara’s name or referred to her and her work. But the point I want to make here is that by the end of that summer, I found myself reading “straight” gerontology because I had exhausted the literature in religion and aging in that relatively brief span! Today–in no small part thanks to the efforts of Barbara Payne Stancil–it is impossible even to keep up with what comes out in this subspecialty in a steady and ever-increasing stream!
Barbara must have been especially frustrated by the stubbornness of many members of her own discipline, the sociologists, whom, as her collaborator Susan McFadden has put it, “she repeatedly urged to pay attention to religion” and “to wake up” to its importance for practicing gerontology as it should be done.4 Bob Atchley, who delivered this lecture two years ago, agrees that “she was very concerned about gerontology’s neglect of the religious aspects of aging,” concluding in his typically understated fashion, “and she freely shared that view with anyone who would listen.”5 By the way (but not totally incidentally) Bob Atchley clearly did listen to her because he has devoted an entire chapter to religion and aging in last year’s 9th edition of his standard text Social Forces and Aging. In fact, he listened so well that in 1998 he left his position as Distinguished Professor of Gerontology and Director of the Scripps Gerontology Center at “the other Miami” in Ohio to become chair of the gerontology department at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, which is, according to its literature, “characterized by its unique Buddhist educational heritage.” That seems to be a pretty clear indication that this major figure in the field now not only recognizes the importance of religion for gerontology but promotes it! I imagine Bob’s move must have at least secretly pleased Barbara quite a bit.
Her impact on the field is further illustrated by an incident that occurred at a GSA meeting in San Francisco at which Andy Achenbaum was giving a talk on aging and the Bible and one of the respondents was Rick Moody. Barbara was sitting on the front row, and after the session Rick bounded around the table, grabbed her hand, and said, “I just want to thank you, Barbara.” When she asked him what for, he replied, “You made me pay attention, all of us pay attention, to religion and aging.” Friends, these are household names in gerontology who are giving this woman credit for introducing the discipline to the importance of religion and making it all right if not mandatory to take it seriously, whatever one’s particular area of specialization.
So Barbara learned and learned well, and she taught not only individuals but her whole discipline to value the religious dimension of life as we age. I want to turn now to the third aspect of what I have suggested to be Barbara’s approach to gerontology as it should be practiced–caring. I’ll begin by talking about my first real interaction with Barbara, which occurred in the context of a preconference special program that the American Society on Aging’s Forum on Religion, Spirituality, and Aging sponsored before the annual meeting in 1993. As chair of the special program committee, I had the pleasure of inviting Barbara to deliver the keynote, handling all her arrangements, and serving as her host for the day. Her presentation, “The Challenge of Caring: Individuals, Congregations, and Community,” pulled together many of the themes and thoughts that she had advocated for decades. It was also a masterful display of sharing her learning in the clear, straightforward way that I had come to expect of her from reading her publications. It certainly taught those of us who were there a great deal, especially about that third aspect of gerontology as it should be practiced–caring–that was her primary theme that morning.
Several things Barbara said in her keynote illustrate especially well how she practiced gerontology, and they bear hearing again.6 First and foremost, she made a point at once obvious and yet too often overlooked, I fear: The necessary beginning of making a good gerontologist is simply love for older people. She elaborated on this fundamental truth by reminding us that even great skill in delivery of care does not make up for lack of clarity about one’s motivation for caring in the first place. That of course is where religion comes in because most religions teach in one way or another that it is normal, expected, and even appropriate for humans to bear burdens and that caring for others often “costs” something, however alien to our dominant cultural values that sounds. In this light, then, becoming a family caregiver is transformed from being an unacceptable intrusion upon a burdenless life that is seen as one’s right; instead, caregiving and the burdens it necessarily brings are a legitimate and expected part of a certain type of life one has chosen to live, if one’s motivation for caregiving is religious. That’s worth thinking about, I think, at least if you’re among those who have chosen that type of life.
On the other hand–or perhaps better, from the other direction–the receiver of care has certain obligations as well, primarily that of being willing to work with the caregiver even if it means bringing others in to mediate disputes. The American obsession with independence of course makes it very difficult for most people to be care recipients, but once again religion can be helpful here because virtually every major religious tradition teaches in one way or another that we are not self-sufficient atoms who can always function totally on our own. The dominant tradition in the United States, Christianity, goes so far as to say that one can come to a proper relationship with God– and thus with self and others– only through recognition of one’s total and utter dependence on God (granted, that’s my Reformed bias showing through, but it really is the heart of the gospel). Again, it appears to me that Barbara did a pretty good job of demonstrating in her own life both sides of what she called this “dyadic model for caring.”
One important implication of much of Barbara’s work that jumped out at me in reading her publications is the necessity to keep ever before us the question “Who are the elders of the 21st century?” and to answer that question honestly. And friends, my answer is, to paraphrase Pogo’s immortal words, “We have met the age wave, and it is us!” If we want to have any hope of overcoming the classifying, labeling, and separating that have led even to threatened “intergenerational warfare,” we need to come to understand–in our hearts as well as our heads–that we are all aging together, regardless of our age at any particular moment.
Now be honest: When you hear the word “aging,” what image comes immediately to your mind? Think of any conference or meeting you’ve attended that contains the word “aging” in its title: Who do you just automatically assume is the focus of such a meeting? But “aging” is not something that applies only to “old” people–it applies to all of us because we’re all aging, every day of our lives from the day we’re born.
If we can genuinely comprehend that truth, no longer is it a matter of “older” and “younger”–wh...

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